


In Our Old Familiar Place

by allyndra



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 10:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyndra/pseuds/allyndra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tour traditions based around food. (Frank/Gerard if you choose to see it that way.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Our Old Familiar Place

Gerard was barely conscious enough to register the invasion when a warm body wriggled into his bunk to press against his back. "Gerard," Frank whispered, loud, his lips right against Gerard's ear. "Hey, you up?"

Gerard grunted, and Frank took that as an answer. "We're going through Corpus Christi. You know what that means?"

Gerard struggled to open his eyes, and then gave it up as a bad idea. Frank's arm had settled over his waist, and his breath was tickling at the hairs over Gerard's ear. He could go back to sleep like this, no problem.

"C'mon, Gee," Frank said plaintively.

Shit. Gerard tried to make his brain work. Corpus Christi. "Mmm, Whataburger?"

"That's a chain, man." Frank poked at his hip. "No, pumpkin empanadas."

"Pumpkin? Ohhhhh," Gerard said on an exhale. Yes. Corpus Christi was definitely pumpkin empanadas. In his defense, they didn't come through here often. He wasn't sure why they were driving through now, since it was out of their way for a straight shot into Houston. "Why're we in Corpus?" His face was smushed against his pillow, so he didn't know if Frank would understand him, but he must have. He shook his head so that his nose brushed back and forth over Gerard's jaw.

"Pumpkin empanadas," he said slowly.

Gerard grunted again. That logic was hard to deny. Especially when his brains had been turned to Silly Putty. "Can it be pumpkin empanadas with coffee?" he mumbled. His lips felt gummy, and his eyes were still fervently resisting his efforts to open them.

"Duh." Frank squeezed him in a full body hug, the kind that made Gerard really happy to be the little spoon. "I'll save you some."

"'Kay." Gerard was already drifting off by the time Frank slid backward out of the bunk. His face slouched into a sleepy frown. His back was cold.

***

Ray and Mikey had this thing whenever they hit the Gulf coast. They'd pester the bus driver for their route and then start rapid-fire googling until they found a place that served crayfish. Or crawfish, or crawdads, or whatever the people in that particular spot called them. Louisiana was the best, but they'd spent a memorable meal in Florida once, eating through a vast pile of crayfish, until their belts had to be undone and the red shells around them had made the table look like a warzone.

Frank couldn't watch it. He was usually pretty good about putting up with everyone else's meat-eating ways, but Gerard saw him go pale when Ray and Mikey started pulling crayfish apart with their hands. By the time Mikey had little crayfish heads on the ends of his fingers like puppets, Frank had been staring at the wall and breathing shallowly through his mouth.

Now Frank, Gerard, and Bob found a salad bar while Mikey and Ray gorged themselves on crayfish. So maybe they had a Gulf coast thing, too.

***  
Gerard still had a hard time with North Carolina. It was barbeque, there, and he loved it. He didn't have a problem with the pork or the Brunswick stew (although Bob seemed to think there was something deeply wrong with putting the coleslaw _inside_ a sandwich.

No, he didn't have a problem with the food; he had a problem with the memories.

Their very first tour, their very first show outside of New England was in North Carolina. It had been such a fucking rush, feeling like a real band. Like they could take on the world. He and Otter had gone out for barbeque while the other guys had checked over the venue. They'd been a little drunk on their own awesomeness and a lot drunk on vodka, and they'd thrown hush puppies at each other until the waitress had asked them to leave.

Gerard remembered it every time they came here, and it made it harder to argue the grammar of "Unsweet Tea" with Frank or to pretend to steal Bob's banana pudding. He still did it, though. These guys were his band, and fuck if he was going to spend all his timing sighing into his barbeque over someone who just … wasn't, anymore.

He did wonder if Otter remembered, though.

***

The server glanced up from her notepad and said, "Red or green?"

Across the table, Frank started humming, and Gerard recognized the modified version of "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" that he'd made up special for New Mexico. Instead of "a bottle of red, a bottle of white," Frank always sang, "a chile of red, a chile of green." It was lame, and it didn't rhyme or make any sense with the rest of the song, but he sang it anyway.

Bob kicked him under the table, and Gerard ordered the green. He always did.

***

Tour still clung to them like a second skin, even after they'd dumped their bags in the bedroom. Gerard tried to shrug it off, stretching his arms wide as though he'd been confined to the bus for the entire tour.

Frank was sprawled across the couch, his legs dangling over the arm despite the fact that he was small enough to fit all of himself on it if he lay down properly. He rolled his head against the back cushion and looked up at Gerard.

"Almost dinner time. Do you want to go out?" Frank asked. He sounded like he didn't care, but Gerard could tell by the way he was trying to mind meld with the throw pillows that he was settled in for a while.

"Nah," Gerard said. He stretched one more time and dropped onto the couch beside Frank. "I'm pretty sure we still have ramen from the last time we were home. "

Frank slotted himself under Gerard's arm. "Sounds perfect."


End file.
